Founder and Curator of LUmkA
Co-Founding Editor Satellite 0-
New York, NY & London, UK based
MRES, Central Saint Martins, University of London (2027)
BFA, Tisch School of Arts, New York University (2022)
Instagram: @cortneylconnolly
Email: cortney@lumka.com
Cortney Connolly is a curator and writer, currently pursuing an MRES in Exhibition Studies at Central Saint Martins and acquired a BFA from Tisch School of Arts, New York University in 2022. Having gained experience in blue-chip galleries, experimental spaces, and institutions, Connolly is inspired to test the boundaries of traditional curation and theoretical discourse. With this desire to expand the limits of exhibition-making, artist-institution collaboration, and collective-driven problem-solving, Connolly’s curatorial and written practices fuse art and aesthetics with economics, philosophy, science, and sociology to inform cultural analysis. During her undergrad at NYU, Connolly as Founding Editor-in-Chief of FreeSwim: An Academic Journal, published and organized the first edition and an in-person exhibition titled FreeSwim: The Postmodern Grotesque. Through interviews, essays, and art, the publication and exhibition showcased eleven artists, from emerging to established, to explore how the body, art, and social hierarchy are interconnected through the performance of disgust. In 2024, Connolly founded On The Rag, a bi-annual publication merging humor with contemporary art discourse to satirize the blue-chip art market. In 2026, Connolly, alongside Mila Rae Mancuso, co-founded Satellite 0-, a 501(c)(3) organization that publishes and supports artists and collectives specializing in experimental media and research. Notable exhibitions and texts include Privacy Index (organized in collaboration with Big Brother Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation), The Theatre, Cult of Domesticity, and THE BOYS CLUB (Redacted).
Connolly’s work has been reviewed by Artforum, Cultured Magazine, Elephant Art Magazine, Impulse Magazine, Metal Magazine, and Office Magazine, among others.
Photo: K14n4, 2025